


How far I'll go

by Alja



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: (sadly), Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, part of the Kairi Zine 2020, post kh3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24963466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alja/pseuds/Alja
Summary: It has been over a week since Sora had disappeared and Kairi had done absolutely nothing. Now that not only her enemies but also her friends started to sideline her and keep her out of anything remotely dangerous, Kairi has had enough.Haunted by massive guilt along with her hurt and sorrow, she finally steps up to take her fate into her own hands - with the help of a small friend.
Relationships: Kairi & Riku (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	How far I'll go

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the Kairi zine, published in 2020.
> 
> I want to thank the mods that I was able to be a part of the zine. The story wouldn't exist without it and it certainly wouldn't have ended as polished as it has. Additional thanks go to DownerPhoenix for looking over this, too.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

The sun had barely started to rise when Kairi opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, reluctant to get up.

An old toy boat that her father had crafted for her hung from the ceiling, complete with three little dolls that leant over the railing, staring back down at her. The cool morning breeze rocked the boat back and forth, causing one of the dolls to shift and hang even more precariously over the railing than the other two, yet somehow it didn’t fall.

The little grin that was etched on the doll’s face made a sad smile spread over Kairi’s lips before she sighed and got up, making her way over to the school uniform she had laid out the night before.

School. What a waste of time when she could be actively searching for Sora.

It has been over a week since he had disappeared and she had done absolutely _nothing_. Emphasis on 'she'. Riku had used the time to travel to Radiant Garden and the Land of Departure for intel, postponing the start of his first year of high school while Kairi was stuck finishing her last year of middle school after her friends had unanimously decided she should finish as much of her education as possible. While she understood their sentiment obviously, she couldn't help but feel frustrated that once again she was put on the sidelines against her will with no means to leave Destiny Islands on her own terms.

And that didn't even touch upon the massive guilt that was hounding her every day.

Kairi threw a glance at her vanity mirror. Her reflection looked back at her, with eyes red and irritated from so little sleep. Her face was starting to thin, too, but that was no surprise either. She hadn't felt like eating in over a week, not since—

A tear rolled down her cheek and she rubbed at it, furious with herself when instead more started pouring out. It was this weakness that got them into their current situation in the first place, probably the very reason everyone wanted her to stay on the Islands, to be out of their way.

"Kairi?"

With a small sniffle, she rubbed away the last tears and smiled down at the table. Her view was still blurred, but she offered her open palm to the small creature standing there. It immediately heeded her call and jumped onto her hand so Kairi could bring him up in front of her face and put on the best impression of a smile she could muster.

"Good morning, Jiminy. I hope you slept well."

It was Sora who had asked Jiminy to stay with Kairi. Knowing that his time was limited, he had urged the cricket to leave his hood and take refuge in Kairi's instead, to keep Jiminy safe from whatever was about to happen to him. She felt another tear roll down her cheek and a little frown spread on Jiminy's face in response.

"I slept wonderfully, you made me the softest makeshift bed possible. But the question should be: How do _you_ feel?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"No change," she answered softly, then shifted the sad cricket onto one hand. With the other, she held her skirt pocket open, allowing him to nestle into it. It wasn't as spacious and comfortable as her hoodie, but it had to do during school hours. She didn't need her enchanted dress—not yet. Not until the others told her it was time to go. Until then, she had stashed it away in a small traveling bag, filled with leftover potions and everything else that could be of use and loaded it into Riku's gummi ship. 

After an awkward and quiet breakfast, Kairi grabbed her satchel and quickly fled the pitying glances her parents were throwing her, only to be surprised by Riku who was leaning against the wooden fence of her front garden. Her heart ached at that. It was the place where Sora formerly—no, _normally_ , Kairi corrected herself, because his disappearance was temporary, _not_ permanent—waited for her each morning. 

"Good morning."

His smile didn't reach his eyes and her shoulders slumped a little.

Things with Riku were awkward ever since the fight in the Keyblade Graveyard. He rarely smiled and was tired constantly, something Kairi could more than understand as she was experiencing the same. However, she was very aware of how he avoided looking into her eyes—and she couldn't help but feel that he was upset with her—as if he blamed her for his best friend’s disappearance.

And how could he not? Had she been stronger, had she fought harder, maybe–

"C’mon, Kairi. You’re going to be late." 

Her heart skipped a beat.

"Are we going off-world?"

Riku shook his head and his smile wavered.

"I meant school." 

Oh. Kairi didn't reply to that, just walked ahead with her head hung low, avoiding Riku's eyes as much as he kept avoiding hers. After a few minutes of awkwardly walking next to each other in silence, Riku spoke up again.

"How are you feeling?"

Kairi shrugged."How are _you_ feeling? Probably not too differently from me."

 _Aside from all the rightful anger and disappointment towards me_ , she added in her mind. But she had her own self-loathing to deal with, so maybe it evened out.

Riku didn't answer her, he just nodded, and before long, they reached the front of the school gate. Some of Kairi's classmates waved at Riku, having been friends with him for most of their lives and some of the younger girls giggled and fluttered their eyelashes at him as they passed by, but neither Kairi nor Riku paid them any mind.

"Why don't you take me with you on your world trips?"

Riku sighed and started rubbing his face tiredly, and for some reason it only made Kairi more upset.

"We've been over this before. We all think—"

"He is _my_ friend, too."

"You're a Princess of Heart, Kairi," Riku tried again, a little quieter this time, fully aware of the students that threw curious glances at them. "You know we have to keep you safe."

"So that's what it's all about," Kairi huffed and crossed her arms in front of her chest, "this was never about my education, this was always about this stupid 'light' business."

"It's not 'stupid light business' and you know that."

"He saved my life, Riku!"

"Exactly, that's why I won't let you throw it away!"

Kairi halted and let her gaze fall. She was right. She had been right all along.

"Kairi?" 

Riku sounded hesitant as he called her name and Kairi fought hard to hold back her tears.

"I'm– I'm sorry it's me."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry _I'm_ here while _he's_ somewhere else."

Riku startled her by grabbing her shoulders and making her look up into his pained eyes.

“Kairi, you can't believe that?!" 

“I will set this right,” she replied instead and internally cursed her voice for sounding weak and shaky. “I will fight harder and work harder and I won’t be a liability anymore. I know it’s all my fault, but I will help bring him back.”

And then Riku did something unexpected: he hugged her. Tears filled Kairi's eyes.

“I know I wasn’t good enough, but I–”

"No. You _were_ good enough. It was all Xehanort. _He_ chose to do these despicable things." Riku pulled her tighter. "Kairi, listen to me: I'm not blaming you. I _never_ blamed you. You're my best friend as well, I could _never_ choose between the two of you."

At that, Kairi couldn't hold back anymore. She grabbed a fistful of Riku's shirt and cried. Cried over the traumatic experiences she had had to go through, cried over the guilt she was harboring inside of her, cried over Sora being forcefully ripped away from her when she had just gotten him back.

They held each other for a couple of minutes, finally mourning the loss of Sora together, until the school bell interrupted their moment.

A little reluctantly, Kairi untangled herself from Riku, but he held onto her shoulders, searching her face with a worried gaze. She sniffled a little, brushing away a few stray tears that hadn't soaked into his jacket.

"I think I needed that. Thank you, Riku."

"Will you be okay?" he asked her and she shrugged.

"I feel better."

And she really did. Crying always made her head ache and she could feel the pain slowly creep into her forehead, but talking to Riku had lifted a heavy weight off of her chest. She adjusted the strap of her satchel and was ready to go when Riku called out to her again.

"Hm?"

His eyes seemed strangely sad once more as he mustered her intensely.

"...Take care, Kairi."

* * *

Despite feeling better about herself and Riku, Kairi’s headache prevailed. Not that it mattered—she couldn't focus on her lessons lately anyway and when she could, she was unable to remember half of what had happened during class.

After the last bell of the day rang, Kairi quickly fled the classroom to escape her friends. She couldn't stand Selfie fussing over her constantly or the looks of pity Tidus and Wakka were throwing at her. But what upset her even more was the complete lack of compassion some of her classmates confronted her with, uncaring of Sora's whereabouts.

Two streets away from school, Kairi felt like she could breathe again. She immediately slowed down—she didn't look forward to arriving at home for the same reasons she fled school—and reached into her skirt pocket to free the little cricket. Jiminy gratefully jumped up and nestled into her hair and the two of them started enjoying the sun and warm rays on Kairi's walk home.

That was until Kairi arrived to see a familiar purple bag in her front garden. Her heart stopped.

”No…"

Kairi quickly opened the gate and ran onto the grass, hands flying to the zipper and revealing pink material and green bottles along with a handwritten note.

> _**I'm sorry** _

"No. He wouldn't!"

Everything was a blur when she dropped her book bag in favor of the purple one, grabbed Jiminy from the top of her head to let him slide into her bag gently, and began running to the beach. She quickly untied her old boat and rowed over to the play island, ignoring the growing pain in her shoulder as she pushed faster and faster, all the while repeating the mantras of "No" and "He wouldn't do this to me" over and over again.

Having secured her boat as fast as possible, Kairi took off again, this time into the bushes, fighting her way through the thicket to reach Riku's gummi ship.

Except it was gone.

The clearing Riku had used to hide his gummi ship in was empty.

Kairi felt herself sink to her knees and hot tears pool in her eyes. Jiminy carefully wiggled his head out of the insides of her bag and looked at her with pity. 

"Oh Kairi…"

"He left me behind again."

"He wants to keep you safe." Jiminy jumped back onto her shoulder and brushed away a big tear that was slowly running down her cheek. “He cares a lot about you. We all do.”

“Then why does he ignore what _I_ want?” 

“You know Riku,” Jiminy brushed yet another tear away with both of his little hands, “he’s not the best when it comes to emotions and other people’s feelings, but what he does he does out of genuine concern for you.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Not only Riku, _everyone_ keeps disregarding my feelings and just assumes what’s best for me.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand before moving to massage her throbbing shoulder in an attempt to soothe the pain a little. It was another reminder of what had happened a week ago.

“Sora refused to let me help him because he thought it was too dangerous. Both he and Riku left me behind when King Mickey asked us to help him out. Axel held back during our training because he kept seeing Xion in me and refused to attack me with all of his power. If they had taken me more seriously, if they had just talked to me instead of protecting me...maybe things would have gone differently.”

“Don’t be too harsh on Riku. He helped you summon your Keyblade, remember? To be honest,” Jiminy let his shoulders droop a little, “I don’t think it was his first choice to leave you behind. I think he wanted to honor Sora’s last wish.”

Kairi's throat constricted. "Sora's– Sora's _what_?"

Jiminy nodded and climbed into Kairi's limp hand which she raised to better look at the little cricket.

"Before he spent his last moment with you, he asked Riku for a favor. He wanted him to take care of you—the same kind of request Riku had back when the Door to Darkness was about to close and trap him and His Majesty in the Realm of Darkness." Jiminy's expression softened. "They genuinely want what’s best for you, Kairi."

"I’ve always wanted what was best for them, too, and yet I never told them to stay put.” With her free hand, she grabbed the edge of her skirt tightly until her knuckles turned white. “I’ve always encouraged them to follow their hearts. Why does nobody allow me to follow my heart for once? ‘May your heart be your guiding key’—isn’t that what Master Yen Sid told us?"

Jiminy lowered his head with a sad frown and Kairi let her eyes wander, too tired to keep the argument going. The beach was bathed in an orange color by the setting sun and the water was glistening prettily. From here, everything seemed so peaceful, so unlike what Kairi felt right then. She lifted her eyes a little more and looked at the red sky when something caught her eye. It was small and very faint, barely visible against the strong rays of the sun, but that didn’t deter her. She gently placed Jiminy back on her good shoulder and got up.

"Kairi?” She felt Jiminy’s tiny hand press against her cheek. “Is everything okay?”

"See the line where the sky meets the sea?” was her only reply to which Jiminy cocked his head.

"Huh? You mean the horizon?" 

Kairi nodded. "It calls me."

She began walking forward, across the clearing and down until she reached a small cave.

"I don’t know why, but when I looked at the horizon I saw something in the distance. Like a small glimmer of hope. It sounds crazy, but my heart tells me to go. The horizon is where sky and sea meet. Sora returned to the world of sky and sea. It can’t be a coincidence. This is the best lead we have."

Her face lit up as she saw what she'd been searching for in the corner of the cave. Small and modest, but sturdy enough to survive strong waves, it still waited for its maiden journey.

"And our raft will take me there."

"No, no, no!” Jiminy pressed his hands into her cheek to catch her attention. “Kairi, that's dangerous! We might end up in the Lanes Between, a place filled with darkness!"

"I’m a Princess of Heart, the darkness won’t get to me. And this dress made by the Three Good Fairies additionally protects me from it. You’ll be safe in my hood or pocket, too. That is, if you want to come with me.”

She started to check on the ropes and sail, happily nodding to herself when she deemed them to be in good condition. 

"You've made up your mind, didn't you?" Jiminy asked her again and she smiled at him.

"I have to do this, Jiminy. I’ve waited for too long. Waiting isn’t good enough anymore."

"Then I don't have any other choice,” Jiminy mock-sighed and then puffed out his chest. “I will join you on your quest!"

"Oh thank you!" Kairi squealed and happily cupped Jiminy to her cheek.

This time, she _would_ save Sora. And that's a promise.


End file.
